Maurice Sapiro, Viscosity IX

Maurice Sapiro, Viscosity IX, 2011

Maurice Sapiro (b1932) is a contemporary artist who works in a variety of media.  He is mostly a painter, but also does sculpture, sketches, ad video art, and he paints with many different techniques.  This piece is from a style that he calls "pour painting" (a term also used to describe the work of Jackson Pollock and others), based on the viscosities of different paints.  Oil colors of different consistencies do not blend, and even repel each other, so Sapiro pours these repellent paints onto a flat surface and then tilts it to achieve the desired effect.  The paintings come out looking like intense cosmic scenes or weather effects, or in this case flowing lava.  The intensity of the color and the expanse of the paint, filling the picture space, give an extreme and ominous impression.  I find much of Sapiro's work to be quite compelling, and this is just one of many examples.